She motioned with her hand, and all the Hapan ambassadors stepped aside, clearing the aisle. Without fanfare, without the music of horns, only in silence did they bring their last gift.
Two women, modestly dressed in black with silver ringlets in their dark hair, came from the ship. A man walked between them. He wore a silver circlet that held a black veil in front of his face, and his long, blond hair fell down around his shoulders. The man was bare-chested except for a small silk half-cloak fastened with silver clasps, and in his muscular arms he carried a large, ornate box of ebony inlaid with silver.
He brought the box and set it on the floor. He sat on his haunches, hands resting lightly on his knees, and the women pulled back his black veil. Beneath it was the most incredibly handsome man that Han had ever seen. His deep-set eyes were a dark blue-gray, like the color of the sea on the horizon, and promised wit, humor, wisdom; his powerful shoulders and firm jawline were strong. Han realized that this must be some high dignitary from the royal house of Hapes itself. The ambassador spoke, "Hapesah, rurahsen Ta'a Chume, elesa Isolder Chume'da." ("From Hapes, the queen mother offers her greatest treasure, her son Isolder, the Chume'da, whose wife shall reign as queen.")
Chewbacca growled and in the crowd below everyone seemed to talk at once, an uproar that swelled in Han's ears like the sound of a storm.
Mon Mothma pulled off her headset and gazed at Leia thoughtfully, one of the generals in the room swore and grinned, and Han stepped away from the window. "What?" Han asked. "What does that mean?"
"Ta'a Chume wants Leia to marry her son," Mon Mothma answered softly.
"But, she won't do it, will she?" Han said, and then his certainty faltered. Sixty-three of the wealthiest planets in the galaxy. To rule as matriarch over billions of people, with that man beside her. . . .
Mon Mothma looked up into Han's eyes, as if gauging him. "With the wealth of Hapes to help fund the war, Leia could overthrow the last remnants of the Empire quickly, saving billions of lives in the process. I know how you have felt about her in the past, General Solo. Still, I think I speak for everyone in the New Republic when I say that, for all our sakes, I hope she accepts the offer."
Chapter 2
Luke could sense the ruins of the ancient Jedi Master's home before his Whiphid guide brought him to the place. Like the landscape of Toola itselfa barren plain where the short purple lichens thrust up from patches of thin winter icethe ruins felt clean and refreshing, yet empty, almost as if they had never been visited by humans. The clean feeling assured Luke that the ruins had once been inhabited by a good Jedi.
The huge Whiphid, its ivory fur ruffling under the spring winds, trudged over the purple moss, a vibro-ax fitted in its paw. It stopped and raised its long snout in the air so that its massive tusks pointed up at a distant purple sun, then gave a trumpeting whistle, glaring ahead with small black eyes.
Luke pulled back the hood of his snowsuit and glimpsed the danger on the horizon. A flock of snow demons was dropping from the shelter of storm clouds, hairy wings flashing gray in the slanting sunlight. The Whiphid whistled a battle cry, afraid they would attack, but Luke reached out with his mind and felt the snow demons' hunger. They were hunting a herd of shaggy motmots that moved like icy hills on the horizon, seeking a calf small enough to slaughter.
"Peace," Luke said, reaching up to touch the Whiphid's elbow. "Show me the ruins." Luke tried to use the Force to calm the warrior. But the Whiphid quivered, clenching its vibro-ax, eager for battle.
The Whiphid whistled a long reply, pointing north, and Luke translated by power of the Force "Search the Jedi's tomb if you must, little one, but I go to hunt. Having sighted an enemy, honor demands that I attack. My clan will feast on a snow demon tonight." The Whiphid wore a weapon belt as its only article of clothing, and from the array hanging there, it pulled free a blackened iron morning star. With a weapon in each huge fist, it charged over the tundra faster than Luke would have believed possible.
Luke shook his head, pitying the snow demons. Artoo whistled from behind, asking Luke to slow his pace as the little droid negotiated a treacherous patch of ice. Together, Luke and Artoo traveled north until they reached three huge flat rocks that rose from the ground to form the roof and sides of a tunnel. The tunnel smelled dry, and Luke pulled a minilantern from his utility belt and made his way down. A short distance from the surface, the tunnel had been caved in. A huge boulder blocked the path. Black soot on the boulder showed where a thermal detonator had blown the stone free in ages past, closing off whatever lay beyond.
Luke closed his eyes and reached out with his mind until the Force channeled through him. He shifted the rock, lifted it free, and held it. "Go ahead, Artoo," Luke whispered, and the droid rolled forward, whistling in dismay as it passed beneath the floating rock. Luke ducked under the hovering boulder, then let it settle behind him.
On the dirt floor immediately behind the rock, Luke found the boot prints of Imperial stormtroopers, still preserved after all these years. Luke studied the prints, wondering if any would have belonged to his father. Darth Vader probably would have had to come. Only he could have killed the Jedi Master who had lived in these caverns. But the footprints told him nothing.
The tunnels wound down through storage rooms carved deep beneath the ground. The air carried the stale scent of rodent dung and fur. A small, square power droid lay dead in one hallway, long since drained of energy. A thermal heater filled another room, its power cables chewed away by small animals. Luke followed the tunnels toward the clean feeling of the Jedi, and finally found the dead Master's room. The body was gone, dissipated as Yoda's and Ben's had, but Luke could feel the residue of the Master's force, and he discovered a snowsuit, slashed and burned, with a lightsaber nearby. Luke picked up the lightsaber, flipped it on. A stream of opalescent energy shot out as the lightsaber hummed to life.
Luke wondered momentarily about the man who had owned the lightsaber, then flipped it off. He knew little except that the Jedi Master had served the Old Republic in its final hours. For months now, Luke had followed the man's trail. As curator of records for the Jedi at Coruscant, the man had seemed only a minor functionary, hardly worthy of notice by the invading Imperials. Yet he had fled Coruscant with the records of a thousand generations of Jedi.
Such records, Luke hoped, would be more than a mere catalog of the Jedis' deeds. Instead, they might contain the wisdom of the ancient masters, their thoughts, their aspirations. As a young Jedi who had not been thoroughly educated in the ways of the Force, Luke hoped to learn the deeper mysteries of how the Jedi had trained their warriors, their healers, their seers.
Luke cast about the room, looking in the feeble light of his minilantern for anything that might provide a clue. Artoo had gone down a side passage, guiding himself through the dark using his headlamps. From the passage Luke heard a mournful whistle and followed.
It was a hallway that led to blackened rooms carved in the stone where cell after cell of holographic video recordings had been stored. But the recordings were blasted and burned to cinders. Computer cylinders lay in piles of molten slag, their memory cores fried. Thermal detonators had melted the things, but Luke also found chunks from EMP grenades. Whoever had destroyed the holo vids had done his or her best to erase them first.
Luke paced the tunnel, passing dozens upon dozens of cells, gazing into each cell in turn, and his heart went from him. Nothing was left. All of it gone. The knowledge and deeds of a thousand generations of Jedi.
"It's no use, Artoo," Luke said, and his words seemed to be swallowed by the darkness, the silence of the empty tunnels. Artoo whistled sadly, rolled on down the corridor, lifting up on his wheels to peek over the lip of each cell.
Gone. All of it gone, Luke realized. The Emperor had not been content to hunt down and murder the Jedi. He had felt the need, in his bid to gain absolute control of the galaxy, not only to extinguish their fire from the universe but to crush their embers, scatter their ashes, so that the Jed
i would never rise again. So that after months of searching, Luke found only ashes.
Luke sat on the floor, put a hand over his eyes, wondering what his next move should be. Certainly there had been other records, other copies. He would need to go back to Coruscant and begin the search there.
From down the hall, near the end of the tunnel, Artoo began to whistle excitedly. "Found something?" Luke asked, and he got up, dusted cinders from his clothing, forced himself to walk slowly. Artoo had found a cell where the records were not melted. A thermal detonator still lay atop them, an obvious dud. The EMP grenade had fragmented, but Luke wondered how effective it had been. He took a computer cylinder from the top, plugged it into Artoo. The droid whistled and bent forward, preparing to display the hologram, but after a moment ejected the cube with a grinding wheeze.
"Come on," Luke whispered hopefully. Reaching near the bottom of the pile, Luke freed a second cylinder, popped it into the droid, and Artoo flashed the image of a man dressed in flowing, pale green robes. Yet static so interfered that the holo image soon broke up. Artoo spat out the cylinder, and light from his headlamp shone once again into the cell, urging Luke to try again.
"Okay," Luke sighed, and he searched for a cylinder farthest from the EMP grenade. He dug through the pile, found one in a far corner on the floor, and was about to pull it free when he felt the Force tug him in another direction. He fumbled among the cylinders, until his fingers brushed one. Very distinctly, he felt a sense of peace. This one, this one, a voice seemed to whisper. This is what you seek.
Luke grasped it, pulled it free, and stepped away. Somehow, he knew that to search the caverns further would be useless. If any answers were to be found here, they were in his hand.
He popped the cylinder into Artoo, and almost immediately Artoo caught a signal. Images flashed in the air before the droid an ancient throne room where, one by one, Jedi came before their high master to give reports. Yet the holo was fragmented, so thoroughly erased that Luke got only bits and piecesa blue-skinned man describing details of a grueling space battle against pirateers; a yellow-eyed Twi'lek with lashing headtails who told of discovering a plot to kill an ambassador. A date and time flashed on the holo vid before each report. The report was nearly four hundred standard years old.
Then Yoda appeared on the video, gazing up at the throne. His color was more vibrantly green than Luke remembered, and he did not use his walking stick. At middle age, Yoda had looked almost perky, carefreenot the bent, troubled old Jedi Luke had known. Most of the audio was erased, but through the background hiss Yoda clearly said, "We tried to free the Chu'unthor from Dathomir, but were repulsed by the witches . . . skirmish, with Masters Gra'aton and Vulatan. . . . Fourteen acolytes killed . . . go back to retrieve . . ." The audio hissed away, and soon the holo image dissolved to blue static with popping lights.
Other people gave reports, but none of their words seemed to offer hope. Again and again, Luke reflected on the words Chu'unthor from Dathomir . Was the Chu'unthor a single person, perhaps a political leader, or could it have been a whole race of beings? And Dathomirwhere was it?
"Artoo," Luke said. "Run through your astrogation files and tell me if you find any reference to a place named Dathomir. It could be a star system, a single planet . . ." Maybe even a person, he thought with dismay.
Artoo took a moment, then whistled a negative. "I thought not," Luke said. "I've never heard of it, either." During the Clone Wars, so many planets had been destroyed, made uninhabitable. Perhaps Dathomir was one of those, a world so ravaged that it had been forgotten. Or perhaps it was a small place, a moon on some planet on the Outer Rim, so far from civilization that it had merely been lost from the records. Maybe even less than a moona continent, an island, a city? Whatever the case, Luke felt certain that he would find it, sometime, somewhere.
They went up topside, found that night had fallen while they worked underground. Their Whiphid guide soon returned, dragging the body of a gutted snow demon. The demon's white talons curled in the air, and its long purple tongue snaked out from between its massive fangs. Luke was amazed that the Whiphid could haul such a monster, yet the Whiphid held the demon's long hairy tail in one hand and managed to pull it back to camp.
There, Luke stayed the night with the Whiphids in a huge shelter made from the rib cage of a motmot, covered over with hides to keep out the wind. The Whiphids built a bonfire and roasted the snow demon, and the young danced while the elders played their claw harps. As Luke sat, watching the writhing flames and listening to the twang of harps, he meditated. "The future you will see, and the past. Old friends long forgotten . . ." Those were the words Yoda had said long ago while training Luke to peer beyond the mists of time.
Luke looked up at the rib bones of the motmot. The Whiphids had carved stick letters into the bone, ten and twelve meters in the air, giving the lineage of their ancestors. Luke could not read the letters, but they seemed to dance in the firelight, as if they were sticks and stones falling from the sky. The rib bones curved toward him, and Luke followed the curve of bones with his eyes. The tumbling sticks and boulders seemed to gyrate, all of them falling toward him as if they would crush him. He could see boulders hurtling through the air, too, smashing toward him. Luke's nostrils flared, and even Toola's chill could not keep a thin film of perspiration from dotting his forehead. A vision came to Luke then.
Luke stood in a mountain fortress of stone, looking over a plain with a sea of dark forested hills beyond, and a storm rosea magnificent wind that brought with it towering walls of black clouds and dust, trees hurtling toward him and twisting through the sky. The clouds thundered overhead, filled with purple flames, obliterating all sunlight, and Luke could feel a malevolence hidden in those clouds and knew that they had been raised through the power of the dark side of the Force.
Dust and stones whistled through the air like autumn leaves. Luke tried to hold on to the stone parapet overlooking the plain to keep from being swept from the fortress walls. Winds pounded in his ears like the roar of an ocean, howling.
It was as if a storm of pure dark Force raged over the countryside, and suddenly, amid the towering clouds of darkness that thundered toward him, Luke could hear laughing, the sweet sound of women laughing. He looked above into the dark clouds, and saw the women borne through the air along with the rocks and debris, like motes of dust, laughing. A voice seemed to whisper, "the witches of Dathomir."
Chapter 3
Leia unplugged the comlink from her ear and gazed at the Hapan ambassador in shock. Hapans were hard to deal withso culturally distant, easily offended. The roar of the hundreds of thousands in the crowd began to swell, and Leia looked up to the windows of the Alderaanian balcony, wondering what to answer. Han had turned away and was speaking excitedly to Mon Mothma.
Above the uproar, Leia said to the ambassador, "Tell Ta'a Chume that her gifts are exquisite, her generosity unbounded. Still, I need time to consider the offer." She paused, wondering how long she could legitimately take. The Hapans were a decisive people. Ta'a Chume had a reputation for making decisions of monumental importance in the space of hours. Could Leia take a day? She felt dizzy, almost giddy.
"Please, may I speak?" Prince Isolder asked in accented Basic, and Leia halted, surprised that Isolder could speak her language at all. She looked into his gray eyes, remembering the warm thunderheads over the tropical mountains of Hapes.
Isolder smiled apologetically. There was a certain strength to his face, a ranginess. "I know your customs differ from ours. Among the ancients, this is how we arranged our royal marriages. But I want you to feel comfortable with any decision. Please, take time to get to know Hapes, our worlds, our customstake time to know me."
Something in the way he spoke made Leia realize that this was an unusual offer. "Thirty days?" she asked. "I would take less time, but I must leave for the Roche system in a couple of days. A diplomatic mission."
Prince Isolder lowered his eyes in acceptance. "Of course. A quee
n must forever be at the call of her people." Then he added apologetically, "If you are leaving on a diplomatic mission, will I have time to meet with you previous to it, under less formal circumstances?"
Leia considered furiously. She had a great deal of studying to do before she lefttrade agreements, registered complaints, studies in exobiology. The Verpines, an insect race, had apparently broken dozens of contracts to build warships for the carnivorous Barabels, and it was very unhealthy to break a contract with a Barabel. Meanwhile, the Verpines claimed the ships had been taken by one of their mad hive mothers and felt no obligation to force the hive mother to return the merchandise. The whole affair was complicated by substantiated rumors that the Barabels had begun negotiating to sell Verpine body parts to chefs among the insect-loving Kubazis. Leia simply felt that she had no business letting her personal life interfere with her work, at least not now.
Leia glanced up at the observation deck. Han had left with Chewbacca, and now Mon Mothma stood, holding the comlink to her ear. Mon Mothma did not move, but beside her sat Threkin Horm, president of the Alderaanian Council. Threkin nodded the affirmative, urging Leia on.
"Yes, of course," Leia said. "If you are free to join me before the mission."
"My days and nights are yours," the prince said, smiling gently.
"Then please," Leia asked, "join me for dinner tonight, in my stateroom aboard the Rebel Dream ?"
Isolder lowered his eyes again, used the thumbs and index fingers of both hands to pull the black veil over his face. Leia had marveled at the beauty of the Hapans during her visit, but now felt a twinge of regret that Isolder hid his face, felt guilty for wanting to gaze at him longer.
Leia left the Grand Reception Hall, thousands watching her departure. Leia felt anxious, and only wanted to find Han. She went to her quarters at the embassy, hoping Han would be there, but the apartments were empty. Perplexed, she used her comlink on the military frequency, found he had left Coruscant on his way to the Rebel Dream . That was a bad sign. The Millennium Falcon had been docked aboard the Rebel Dream , awaiting Han's return. When Han felt worried or frustrated, he liked to work on the Falcon . Working with his hands, solving familiar problems, seemed to ease his mind. So he had run to his ship, to work. This proposal must have disturbed him deeply, probably more deeply than even Han knew. Leia was bone weary, but she could see why Han would be in a bad mood. She summoned her personal shuttle.
Star Wars - The Courtship of Princess Leia Page 2
